Kri stepped forward, surrounded by a faint nimbus of holy light. “We will stop you, dragon,” he declared, and his voice carried the ring of divine authority.
“Foolish priest. You do not know what you are doing, and you know nothing of this one. No mere dragon is this, though Vestapalk was mighty among dragons. This one is now mightier still.”
“Keep it talking,” Albanon muttered, hoping Kri could hear. The hunters had backed away from the large demon and were carving through the remaining smaller ones. Albanon closed his eyes and extended his other senses to feel the pattern of magic around him.
As before, he felt the power coursing through the air and the ground, and experienced the demons as dark tangles in that weave. The eladrin warriors and their hounds were bright threads, part of the same fabric as the Feywild itself, shining with life and their own magical power. Kri was a different sort of brightness, something foreign to the weave but congruent with it, shining with tremendous power of a different kind. The priest was speaking to the dragon-demon again, but Albanon paid no attention to the words. His attention was focused on the dark tangle of magic where the large demon stood.
A lot of power was packed into its four-armed frame, power that was both alien to the Feywild’s weave of magic and antithetical to it-the magic of chaos and destruction. But there was more, something else occupying the same space. It was a faint presence, like an image in a mirror, similar to the demonic tangle. Albanon also noticed a churning undercurrent of elemental power, pointing to Vestapalk’s draconic nature.
“Have you seen what you wanted to see, wizard?” Vestapalk’s voice seemed to ring in his mind as much as in his ears, and Albanon’s eyes popped open.
“You’re projecting your consciousness through this demon, somehow,” Albanon answered.
“And what have you seen of this one?”
Albanon frowned, trying to make sense of what he had seen. “You’re not just a dragon any more,” he said.
“This one is a dragon, the Voidharrow, and the Plaguedeep. This one is the plague that will consume you.”
The demon’s mouth opened wide, and a cloud of vapor billowed out. Tiny red crystals shimmered in the air and spread slowly out from the hulking creature.
As Kri jumped back from the spreading cloud, Albanon hurled a blast of fire at the demon. It roared its pain and lurched forward, sending the scarlet cloud eddying around it. Kri called down a column of light that sent the demon sprawling to the ground and also dissipated the portions of the cloud that it touched.
A lingering wisp of cloud touched one of the fey hounds, seeped in through its nostrils, and immediately started to alter the poor beast. Jagged crystal protrusions sprouted from its back as it howled its agony. Its forequarters flattened, its legs splayed to the sides, and its head curled in on itself.
Careful not to get too close to the remaining wisps of the toxic cloud, Immeral cut the hound-demon’s head from its broad shoulders with a single swing of his sword. With a gesture, the huntmaster ordered the other eladrin and their hounds away from the tower, back to where their horses waited.
Albanon followed, forming a clearing among the thorns for the eladrin to sit comfortably. Kri threw himself down on the ground, still short of breath from the exertion of their long flight across the plain. Albanon settled with the others, enjoying a moment of quiet after all the chaos of the battle.
“Well,” Immeral said after a moment, “had I known at Moonstair that I was speaking to the son of the Prince of Thorns, I would have offered to escort you to your father’s palace.”
“And had I known you were my father’s huntmaster,” Albanon said, then paused. “I don’t know what I would have done, actually.”
Immeral laughed, the clear, musical sound of the fey’s wild delight. Just like the smells on this side of the Moon Door, that laugh stirred up Albanon’s memories of home, of feasts in secluded glades and races along woodland trails.
“Why did you come to the tower?” Albanon asked.
“As soon as you left the Palace of Thorns, your father turned his attention to the Whitethorn Spire. He had paid it little heed for decades, and it had almost faded from his consciousness entirely. When he cast his gaze this way again, he discovered that the tower was breached-something was here that shouldn’t be. Well, we saw what that was.”
“And he sent you here, to …?”
“To protect you, yes.”
“And we thought you were chasing us.”
Immeral laughed again, but without mockery. “Oh, my friend,” he said through his laughter, “if we had been chasing you, you would not have reached the tower.”
“Although your command of the thorns was impressive,” another one of the hunters added.
“Indeed,” Immeral said. “You gave us a worthy chase-better than we’ve had in years.” The smile faded from his face. “Of course, that left us all more tired once we arrived than we might have been. Probably cost us a couple of hounds.”
“I know I’m lucky to be alive,” another hunter-the one Kri had healed-said. He nodded to the priest. “Thank you.”
“Without your help in that battle, Albanon and I would be dead for certain,” Kri said. “We owe you our gratitude and our lives.”
“You are the son of my lord and master,” Immeral said to Albanon. “You need only to ask my help, and I will give it. Whatever the circumstances.”
“Thank you.”
Albanon sat back and looked up at Sherinna’s tower. Splendid, the last legacy of his apprenticeship with Moorin, was perched atop the arch over the open door. Everything else around him was a part of his life that was new and at the same time old. Kri, his new mentor, was passing on to him a tradition that came from his own grandmother, whose tower this had been. His father’s huntmaster had just promised Albanon his aid, and the very brambles of the Plain of Thorns acknowledged his noble birthright.
This is who I am, he thought. A prince of the Feywild, heir to the legacy of the Order of Vigilance. His eyes found Splendid again. Not some bumbling apprentice. Not anymore.
And not ever again.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Is it the dragon?” Shara whispered.
“I can’t tell,” Uldane replied. “It’s dark down there, and … foggy?”
Shara’s vision cleared enough to show her what the halfling was talking about. Eddies of mist billowed up the stairs from the chamber at the bottom. She took Quarhaun’s hand and got to her feet, as slowly and quietly as she could manage.
“Should I take a look around down there?” Uldane asked.
“No. Whatever it is, it knows we’re here. You’re not going to sneak past it. The first one down is going to be the first one attacked. And that’s going to be me.”
“We should send some lizardfolk warriors down first,” Quarhaun said. “Get a sense of what we’re up against. Force the dragon to reveal itself, if it is him.”
Shara looked for any hint of humor in the drow’s face and saw none. “What?” she asked.
“They’re expendable, Shara. You’re not.”
“I don’t send anyone into danger I’m not willing to face myself.”
“Officers with that attitude rarely live long enough to get promoted.”
“I’m not an officer, Quarhaun. I’m an adventurer. I’m not here because some baron or general sent me here to achieve some military objective.”
“Why are you here?”
“I’m here because that dragon killed almost everyone in the world that ever meant anything to me. And after I killed him once, he didn’t have the decency to stay dead, which means I get the pleasure of killing him again. Maybe if I’m lucky I’ll get to kill him a third time-once for Borojon, once for Cliffside, and once for Jarren.”
“And so you’re going to walk boldly into what’s probably a death trap, not even knowing if whatever is down there is the dragon or not. You can’t kill the dragon if you’re dead.”